Photo Walk in Downtown Altoona

09.21.2018

Photo walk plans:

Towards the end of summer, my good friend Heidi and I planned a photo walk. Together, we explored downtown Altoona looking for interesting lines and inspiring, fun images to make. We often want to plan a trip to New York City to do this, but our schedules and family life are barriers to planning anything big. So we decided to make it happen locally. We had fun! Play is such an important element in being an artist. This was a night for us to play and discover (and enjoy a bit of pasta! yum!)

Below I'm sharing 18 favorite images that I shot that night.

New Perspective:

Sometimes just moving my body and changing my perspective is so helpful to see the world in a new way. That's true for most of life, I think.

Above:

We found a pile of dissected batteries lying in an alley. I have no idea how they ended up there but they were certainly aesthetically interesting! The image on the right are some weeds growing out of the battery pile area and a corner of the building nearby.

Design:

When we first begin, I think we take more expected shots and as you warm up and get comfortable, I find that I can more clearly think of what Elements and Principles of Art and Design I'd like to focus on. Here, I was playing with the shadow to create a mirrored shape to the object and am using some repetition with the other pipe farther away.

A Friend!

As we walked, I ran into a friend! I saw his truck coming and was surprised to see a family friend and our electrician, Bob. He wondered at what the fascination was with this particular alley in downtown Altoona. He said that he frequently sees kids getting prom photos in this alley. We talked about that a bit and then he had to go do a job, but before he left, I took a portrait of him. I really like this portrait. I'd have loved to have an off-camera flash coming at him more directly from the right but we were shooting just with ambient light that night and I think this is full of life.

Peek-a-boo!

We happened upon this peek-a-boo spot through the leaves of a tree that looked gracefully out upon a beautiful historical building in Altoona. This building is interesting inside and out!

Sunset light through stained glass:

This is another favorite capture from my downtown Altoona photo walk the other week. We watched a few minutes admiring the light coming through the stained glass windows of this cathedral. It was a pretty magical way to conclude our photo walk!

Getting Connected:

My business is about providing art opportunities in the community as well as portraiture photography work. If you would like to follow along, you can check out my last blog article or join my newsletter!